panorama

The process behind retouching a panorama commercial interior is a lot more detailed then editing a single un-stitched image. This method makes for a great image but also requires a bit more work in post production (especially with added strobes). The new panorama feature in Lightroom is nice but it is completely useless when in comes to building up layers in Photoshop. The Lightroom process relies to much on automation and doesn’t give enough control over how the image should be processed. Luckily there is still the ability within Lightroom to export images to Photoshop where they can then be combined as panoramas (much more control). This method is a lot more predictable when stacking layers and ensuring they line up correctly.

Post Production

Once we had 4-5 different (panorama, natural light) exposures stacked together in Photoshop we began constructing our base image. There were a few areas that didn’t quite line up but we handled this with a little retouching. After we had our base image completed we started adding in strobe layers. To accomplish this we dropped a single strobe layer on the base panorama layer and manually lined it up by turning the strobe layer blending mode to difference (once the layer is lined up perfectly it will go dark). We checked this after the fact by toggling the layer on and off. This only works if the initial panorama was blended using the re-position method in Photoshop. The re-position method ensures the image hasn’t been stretched or altered to create the panorama but rather re-positioned and blended (otherwise adding additional layers wouldn’t line up). We went through this process every time we included a new layer or element to the image. Once everything was in place we added all the adjustment layers and did the retouching.